


between the motion and the act (the body/heat remix)

by cherrygarden



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Climate Change, F/F, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, Non-Linear Narrative, Pre-Apocalypse, Relationship Study, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26263477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrygarden/pseuds/cherrygarden
Summary: The end of the world is sure to come, sooner or later. This is what it's like to fall in love before it happens.
Relationships: Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 63
Collections: K-Pop Ficmix 2020





	between the motion and the act (the body/heat remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [younglegends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends/gifts).
  * Inspired by [worse things than this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19468918) by [younglegends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends/pseuds/younglegends). 



The day of LOONA’s comeback, a meteorite makes impact in the Bering Sea. In the five seconds between the meteorite entering the atmosphere and it hitting the water, Heejin sings the line _“Let’s go cherry-blossom watching and live forever in this moment.”_ They don’t get to see it until after the showcase; one of the TV screens backstage is turned onto the news, showing the replay of the clip. 

The air is colder and drier than it was just a few hours ago, a shock compared to the muggy humidity leading up to this. Hyunjin tucks Heejin under her arm as they shuffle into the van.

It’s early August, and winter for the rest of the year.

Before that:

Heejin wakes up sweaty and itchy, sheets kicked off and tank top rucked up to get as much surface area exposed to cool air as possible. The chugging air conditioner is barely doing anything to alleviate the heat or the humidity, and the inside of Heejin’s mouth tastes cloyingly sweet. She scratches at a mosquito bite on her leg while she blearily grasps for her phone with the other hand. 7:39 AM. Heejin lets the phone slip out of her hand and lifts herself out of bed, shuffling yawning into the bathroom for a shower.

Hyunjin has let herself into the room while Heejin is in the shower. She’s lounging on Heejin’s bed in a sports bra and shorts and looks up when Heejin comes back in. The moisture on Heejin’s body nearly evaporates in a second at the glimpse of the dip of Hyunjin’s waist.

“What, are you here to watch me get dressed? Creep.” Heejin bends to lotion her legs and feels Hyunjin’s heavy gaze on her as she descends. “What are you up so early for anyway? It’s your day off.”

Heejin is awake for a parade of brand endorsement photoshoots. Hyunjin has no such thing on her schedule and is a notoriously late riser to boot.

“You said it,” Hyunjin responds lightly. “I’m here to watch you get dressed.”

It’s nothing Hyunjin hasn’t seen before at this point, but walking around the room all but naked and trying to go about the rest of her routine with Hyunjin’s eyes on her makes Heejin’s skin prickle. 

Hyunjin pushes off the bed. “Looks like it might actually rain today,” she muses.

Heejin glances out the window at the gray sky, hazy rays of sunlight coming through the spaces between all the vapor and fumes. “Don’t think so.”

“It will,” Hyunjin insists, and she comes up to Heejin, pressing a light hand against her abdomen and guiding her backwards until she hits the wall. Hyunjin drags a fingertip up the back of Heejin’s thigh, underneath her towel. She lands the tip of her tongue on Heejin’s parted lips and ventures in. And then she pulls away. “See you at practice later, superstar.”

In early spring, seemingly all the butterflies in Korea fly north all at once. Lepidopterists struggle to explain the phenomenon on the news; Jinsol jokes on VLive that it’s a viral marketing campaign, teasing the fans for a comeback.

The joke gets less funny when the precarious bubble of spring bursts into summer way too fast. By the last week of February, all the snow has melted and things only get hotter from there. With the smog worse than ever now, it’s always humid but hardly ever rains. Everyone looks back on the butterflies’ mass migration as an omen they should have tried harder to interpret. There hadn’t even been a comeback planned when Jinsol had said it. That, too, was a sign of things to come.

Paranoia lingers in the air. Every conversation is speculation about what could possibly be next, or why this is all even happening. The temperature rises to new highs, and the dorms start feeling dank and clammy with the windows open.

They get used to the sultry weather quickly enough, mostly by collectively deciding to put the nail in the coffin of any compunctions about being naked around each other. If they hadn’t been used to it before, they were definitely about to be. Hyunjin, in particular, takes to lying on the couch in her underwear facing the blast of the air conditioner. Heejin resists the urge to reach out and touch the expanse of skin every time she walks past.

She gives in just once, playfully swatting at Hyunjin’s ass to rouse her from her nap. She lets her hand linger there for a moment too long, and Hyunjin doesn’t flinch away. Heejin starts to wonder just how much she can get away with when Hyejoo and Chaewon bustle out of their room, their peals of laughter breaking the silent tension, and she pulls her hand away instinctively as if she’d been burnt— it doesn’t help that she feels the heat rising up to her face, too.

Hyunjin rolls over, gets one good, bleary look at her, and a Cheshire cat grin spreads across her face. Heejin feels desperately, embarrassingly caught in her trap.

Once they get to hear the song, all Heejin has in her head for the next week is _I’ll be the only girl in your sweet dreams,_ in Hyunjin’s voice.

They ring in the new year at Gayo Daejejeon, on a packed stage with their peers. Confetti streams down as everyone cheers in celebration. The sky is bright and loud with fireworks. Hyunjin already has her heels off before they can even get backstage. They can all feel the exhaustion settling into their muscles while they get out of their stage costumes and head back to the dorms. It’s been a long promotional cycle that only ramped up more with all the end of year activities, but it feels good— it feels like the top of the world, like the mix of pleasant soreness and endorphins of climbing a mountain.

Sooyoung sends their manager out to conjure some soju for them, and they crack open the bottles on the terraced rooftop of their dorm. “This is going to be a good year for us, I can feel it. Let’s all make resolutions,” she says, raising a bottle.

Hyunjin immediately responds with, “I want to win some more awards,” which everyone laughs and cheers at. They’ve won some already, but the major awards shows are still coming up, and LOONA have emerged with a strong slate of nominations another year in a row. They all want to win more, they’re all hungry for it.

They go around the group in a circle: all Hyejoo wants is some hot video game out for release in a couple months, but Jinsol wants to self-produce some songs and Jiwoo considers going into acting. Jungeun gives the cop out answer of wishing for the members’ health and makes everyone groan and boo. 

The sun starts to creep up the horizon. Heejin finishes off with, “I want to get a big brand sponsorship, and… I want to fall in love.”

This is a fatal error that only opens the teasing floodgates. Yerim leans in to press a wet, smacking kiss to Heejin’s cheek. “You have to play it cool, unnie, no one likes the clingy, desperate types.”

“I’m cool!” Heejin protests, “I’m very cool!”

Hyunjin follows Heejin to the gym like a stray cat. 

She doesn’t even come to work out, just lies back on a mat and laughs while Heejin holds herself through a 30-second side plank. “Hey! What?” Heejin yells, dropping down onto both arms and knees. 

“Nothing,” Hyunjin says, laughing even more. She coos, “It’s just that you make these cute, little faces when you do that.”

Heejin scoffs and turns to the other side. Even the trainer tries to hide a smirk. Heat rushes up to Heejin’s face. She feels like she might explode.

Eventually Hyunjin is tempted enough by weights that she rushes through her stretches for the chance to deadlift. The trainer puts her on the rowing machine next while Heejin takes a break. “Not so funny now, is it?” Heejin taunts in between chugs of water.

“What? This is easy,” Hyunjin responds, grunting lightly. “Everyone knows I’m stronger than you, obviously.”

Heejin rolls her eyes, but then she spends the rest of her break distracted, watching the flex of Hyunjin’s legs. Hyunjin had called her cute earlier, what was that about? Just another attempt to mess with her head or something? Whatever. Hyunjin has really great legs. Heejin could watch them forever.

They finish their respective workouts in relative silence. Heejin catches Hyunjin sneaking glances at her when she thinks she’s not looking, but Heejin blushes every time she gets caught doing the same thing, so neither of them can bring it up.

“You think we should go for a swim?” Heejin asks after they cool down.

Hyunjin is filling up her water bottle across the room. “Feeling hot?”

Heejin shrugs. It’s early autumn, still, warm enough for a swim, but the cold is lurking just on the horizon now. “Not particularly.”

Hyunjin snags the collar of her shirt, and then Heejin stiffens with the sensation of cold water hitting her back. “What the hell!”

Heejin feels the tell-tale sting in her eyes and thinks she might start crying. She also thinks, _If Hyejoo were here, she wouldn’t do this to me._ Hyunjin presses against her back and wraps her arms around Heejin’s waist, soaking the front of her own shirt with the contact. “I’m just playing with you,” Hyunjin says right in Heejin’s ear, the mock pout practically audible in her tone. 

The combination of shock and proximity is so disorienting it makes Heejin feel like she’s about to burst out of her skin, tingling all over at the brush of Hyunjin’s hair against her cheek and Hyunjin’s knees bracketing her hips.

In the frantic rush of preparing for a comeback and another promotional cycle, Heejin and Hyunjin get a free vacation to Jeju Island. It’s for work, of course, filming a segment about beating the heat for Battle Trip. The water is still meant to be safe, according to the experts, but the tide is coming in way too high the day of their arrival. The film crew gets a few shots of them sitting up-shore on the beach, sharing a bag of overripe pears as they watch the water. Like everything else these days, they’re tender to the touch and bursting with excess.

The sky finally breaks open with the first rain in months that day. Heejin and Hyunjin run back into their hotel, dripping wet. Hyunjin slides her hand under Heejin’s soaked shirt, drawing her into her orbit, radiating body heat. It’s easy enough to tilt their faces together, as natural as gravity. Heejin sates herself on the damp, warm inside of Hyunjin’s mouth, and then Hyunjin pins her down against the bed. 

“You look so good like this,” Hyunjin says. Heejin is half undressed, still damp from the rain, and open like sliced fruit. “How bad do you want it?”

“Feels like I’ve been waiting forever,” Heejin pants. Hyunjin finally touches her then and makes her work for it, makes her prove it. 

They fall asleep like that, skin to skin.

In Heejin’s dreams, the world is cold and dry; dust fills her throat and stings her eyes. Everything else is gone: the dorms back in Seoul, the fans hungry and watching, the schedules, the overgrowth. She wakes up with a jolt, gasping for air, and startles Hyunjin awake with her. Heejin whispers, “Will we stay together once it’s over?”

Hyunjin rubs her back for a moment then mumbles, “I’m not going anywhere.”

The heat is oppressive in the few minutes it takes for them to get from their van to the entrance of their company building. There are still a few fans lingering outside for pictures, or just to see their idols— palpable desperation for a little joy in the face of the inevitable end of all things. Heejin frowns, heart breaking for them slightly as Yeojin makes a token effort to tell them to get indoors.

“Ugh,” Hyunjin murmurs to Heejin. “I’m literally drenched. This shit is unbearable.”

She swipes a hand at the back of her neck and then pushes her fingers up to Heejin’s nose. There’s the familiar, tangy smell of Hyunjin’s sweat for a second before Heejin smacks her hand away and yells, “Gross!”

Hyunjin laughs and clings closer. It’s not cool enough, even indoors, for this.

They take the elevator up to a conference room. Heejin takes a seat across from a window— even through the shutters, the sun is bright as all hell, making the whole city look like it’s been lit aflame. Hyunjin takes the seat by her side and bumps Heejin’s knee with her own.

The world is ending, and the exec who’s called them into the meeting says: You might never have another comeback after this, but don’t you want just one last chance? You’ll wring everything you can out of your careers. You’ll go out with a bang.

Not a single one of them can say no to that.

**Author's Note:**

> ["For me, if the world was ending... I think it'll end in an instant. So I would just... I think I would just be."](https://youtu.be/snRA0PFHX2M?t=15)


End file.
